


In Cicada Skin

by magicgenetek



Series: Molting Verse [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Dissociation, Gore, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Love/Hate, M/M, Misunderstandings, Suicidal Thoughts, Terrorism, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 17:37:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7232152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicgenetek/pseuds/magicgenetek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Talon has turned the man once called Gabriel Reyes into a weapon; he's aimed straight at the heart of Overwatch, and at Jack Morrison. What's a better weapon than a dead man waiting to destroy the one he's been told killed him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Cicada Skin

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by http://officialpharma.co.vu/ 's wonderful artwork, so you should probably take a look at these before reading this!
> 
> Part 1: http://officialpharma.co.vu/post/146009857459/by-the-end-of-this-youll-hate-me-just-as-much-as  
> Part 2: http://officialpharma.co.vu/post/146021886684/youre-ready-pt-2-of-this-continuedmore-it

Once, there was a man who was in love with Jack Morrison. Once, that man had built an army with him. Once, that man had been betrayed.

That man is dead. You wear that man's corpse like a cicada trapped in its own shed skin. You have pretended to be that man in phone calls, on skype, with the gun at your head out of sight and mind. It is easy, now, to act in a way that avoids pain.

You do it now, holding still as your handlers strap you into the chair in Jack's room. Wrists, elbows, knees, ankles, waist. Like always.  One of them slides an IV into your arm and it burns as serum drains into you veins. You can feel your nerves thrumming, the restlessness that supersoldier serum fills you with whenever it’s injected.

"Don't you still love me?" asks Jack on the screen.

"Fuck you! You did this to me, you let them - you can't just ask me that and smile!" Your head thunks against the back of the chair as one of your handlers runs a strap over your forehead. "You always hated me, didn't you?! You had to do this to Amelie and to me so we weren't in your way!"

"That's right," Jack says as one of the agents straps something around your neck. Something metallic lies in the small of your throat. "I bet you'd just love to wrap your hands around me and strangle me."

"I'd tell you everything you did to me as I did it right back to you," you snarl.

"That's too bad," Jack says. "I'm going to make you silent once and for all. Maybe if you can kill me, I'll let you speak."

"You - "

A handler strings wire through a needle as the other holds your mouth shut. You realize what's going to happen and struggle, but the straps hold fast. Pain shoots through you as the agent shoves it through one lip and out the other.

Jack laughs as your screams are slowly muffled.

* * *

 

When it’s done, they shoot your body through with opioids so you can’t feel your mouth. All you can feel is the heady fizz of the serum and adrenaline mixing. It’ll last a few hours – more than enough time to kill Jack once and for all.

Your handlers help you dress. Overwatch armor, a mask that conceals all but your eyes under an Overwatch helmet, shotguns. You see Amelie going through the same with her handlers. You don’t understand why they keep on giving her that ridiculous outfit. A sniper needed armor same as anyone else.

You can see others in knockoff Overwatch armor or formal office attire loading wires and machinery into briefcases and backpacks. You grunt something through the wires and point, and Amelie says, “I don’t know why they’re packing that many bombs either. I thought this was an assassination mission.”

“It is,” says a handler. “This is back up.”

This is stupid, you think. If you were leading this operation, you’d have someone distract Overwatch so you could plant the bombs, but you and Amalie are going to be the main thrust of the attack. But why do you need bombs in the first place? The mission is to kill Jack. If you used bombs, you’d take out the entire base. Didn’t you want to take back the base? You couldn’t use it for yourself if it was gone.

They load you and Amelie and a dozen men in armor into one truck, then send their well-dressed men in backpacks in another. The two of you curl close during the drive; her hand fits in yours like it was a glove. You had both been destroyed by Jack, taken to pieces, and now you were the two best agents Talon had. You had spent hours after torture clinging to each other for warmth, waiting for when they would open your cages and let you live in the short moment of the kill.

Amelie, her handler and two spotters leave first. It’s another ten minutes to the parking lot. No one seems suspicious yet.

They let you walk into the lobby. You greet others with a wave when they call out the dead man’s name. You keep walking. Agents break off.

The electronic voice in your earbud says that you need to go to the room with Athena’s computer bullshit and destroy her; then you’ll be allowed to kill Jack. You know the way to her like the back of your hand. Find her.

You go. You lead your agents in. You see one drop a backpack and you make a hand signal to reprimand him for sloppiness, but he ignores you. You sigh and keep walking.

And there he is. They are. Jack with his helmet off talking to Angela. Talking to her as if he didn’t know what he had done. As if he hadn’t used Angela’s own technology to bring you back from the brink a dozen times over, a hundred times, a thousand.

“Don’t,” your handler says, but you’re already seeing red. You wanted him dead. You

_curl up next to him in the one man cot you’re sharing and murmur, 'Te amo, hijo de la chingada.' He looks at you and you_

unholster a shotgun and start running. The first shot buries itself in the wall next to Angela’s head, and she screams and brings her wand up. Jack

_hits you lightly on the shoulder and snorts. 'I know enough Spanish to know what that means, you know. Stop beating around the bush.' Then he_

pulls his revolver and shoots once, twice. One whizzes past you; another buries itself in your gut. You can barely feel it. You

_feel your face grow hot. It’s a good thing the room is dark and so are you, because blushing does not suit the tough guy reputation you’re trying to keep up. Then: 'I love you, dumbass. Can I get any plainer than that?' He laughs happily and you_

are fueled by rage and revenge boiling hot in your blood and you duck under the swing of Angela’s weapon before smacking her in the gut with your shotgun. She’s a traitor, too, but Jack is yours and you’re not going to let one of your handlers kill him first.

“Get out of here!” Jack yells. She runs. Shots ring out. Your handlers and the other agents have opened fire. You wonder if it’s because you sprang early, but you don’t care because everything has lead up to _this._

He shoots you again. You club him with the shotgun and shoot, splitting the ground next to one foot. Something is in your eyes. Your vision is blurring. You snarl and rip your helmet off, rubbing your eyes clear before attacking again.  
  
One shotgun is empty. Jack tries to grab the other. You struggle over the gun; then you shove the shotgun into his arms while you grab his pistol and you’ve swapped weapons now.

Sweat drips into your face. That has to be why your vision is blurring, why your heart feels like it will burst out of your chest. You need him dead, you need him gone, you swing the pistol up and shoot.

One bullet shatters his cheek, exposing teeth and gums. He slams himself into you before you can shoot again, and you fight on the ground. You yank at his hair and jam fingers at his eyes as he scrabbles to break free of your grasp. He’s strong, but you’re stronger. You’re going to break every bone in his body one by one. It won’t be a quick death.

You start with his wrist. He screams something. His words fracture in your ears. You have to stop and concentrate to hear them.

“Gabe, stop! What the hell?!” If you were as naïve as you used to be, you’d say he sounded confused, frightened. But you know he did this. He brought it on himself, for what he did to you.

A far off explosion shakes the building as you yank off your mask and show him your ruined face. The opiates are starting to wear off. The wires dig into skin and muscle, forcing your mouth shut.

“Gabe, what – ” His hand is hot on your mouth as his fingers dig into the knot on one side of your mouth, trying to loosen it. You feel like he’s shoved a rod down your spine; you can’t move. He’s tortured you for months from the screen; you wait for his nails to pierce your skin. You wait for fresh pain on old.

Another explosion. The ground shakes. Athena’s voice comes on and starts outlining evacuation procedures. It’s enough distraction for Jack to shove up and pin you to the ground, rather than vice versa. You struggle as his knees weigh your wrists down, as he pulls out a knife and his hands wrap around the weight on your neck.

You both hear beeping. Jack reacts first. He grabs the thing on your neck and throws –

**BOOM!**

His throwing arm protects part of his face; the rest is seared like raw meat on a grill. He clutches his face and you spin, tossing him to the ground.

You take his knife and slice the wires on your lips, then gasp in air. Your mouth feels like a desert. The air smells like gunpowder and ash and roasting flesh. Jack grabs for the knife with his good hand and the two of you struggle with it. Your hand is shaking. He shoves the knife up to your neck.  
  
You wait for him to slit your throat. He just stares. He can’t help it with his eyelids burned off, part of you thinks hysterically.

“Do it,” you growl. Your lips don’t feel real anymore. This is not your body, just a shell, a corpse with a ghost in it. Gabriel Reyes isn’t here anymore. Jack will bleed out or get an infection or something; he’s as good as dead. It seems right that things end like this, your hands entwined, your eyes meeting. “Put me out of my misery.”

“Why are you doing this?” Jack asks. What remains of his mouth stiffens in a stubborn grin. “Gabe, who did this to you?”

“You did,” you say. “You did all this to me. It’s your fault.” You tear a wire from your lip. Your eyes blur again. “I don’t understand. Why, Jack?”

The explosions are getting closer. The shaking is getting worse. Maybe you were right after all. If they wanted to blow this place up, they’d need a distraction. A dozen men with guns and Jack Morrison getting murdered by a dead man would be a damn good one. Especially with the bomb they’d wrapped around your neck.

You don’t understand. This wasn't what the mission was supposed to be. Your head is spinning. It feels about to unscrew from your body. Jack shakes his head like he doesn’t understand either and puts a hand on your head. “Sorry, Gabe.”

His face is perfect even while looking like a slab of beef. You don’t want to look away. You take your helmet and put it on his head to make him stop looking at you. 

You don’t want him to die. You want to kill him. You’re not going to let a bomb kill him when you can. You don’t want to watch him die.

You brace your arms and legs and wait for the explosions to reach you. The first piece of rubble hits your leg and you don’t move. Another hits your back. The smell of ashes and smoke grows nearer. You growl and curl over Jack like a feral wolf.

He’s yours. It’s only right that the two of you die together, you think, and then the rubble really starts falling.

You hold him close as the explosions break the building around you. You’re tossed here and there like the world’s ugliest pinball. Your grip shakes as you’re tossed back against the wall and feel bones snap inside. The two of you fall to the ground, Jack’s head lolling back, and you try and check for a pulse with a shaking hand.

Then another explosion bursts, and the ground underneath you boils open. He slides left. You’re blown right. You scream his name until your face smacks against something hard and then you know nothing but blood and pain as you spin.

When the shaking finally ends, you howl in frustration. Your broken mouth can barely make the shape of his name. The the fizz of the serum finally fades out, letting pain slam you into the ground. You feel your face with hands that feel like raw sausage. It seems like you lost most of the wire and your lips while you were being thrown around.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You were supposed to die together.

Your head hits the concrete. It’s heating up. You wonder if it will cook your face like the bomb cooked Jack’s. Tears sizzle as they drop off your face and hit the ground.

Darkness clouds your vision. It’s narrowed your sight to a pinprick when you hear her picking through the rubble.

“Gabe?”

“Go ‘way, ‘ngel,” you slur. You don’t need someone ruining your perfectly good death. She could go cry over Jack with the rest of them instead of cleaning up the trash.

Her hand burns your face. You don’t know why she’s here. All you could think of since the day you were captured is Jack, Jack, Jack. You don’t know what to do with Angela.

Fingers slide your eyes shut. Fine. You’re done. She wins. She can do what she wants with you.

You let yourself black out.

* * *

 

You wake up feeling light. Like you could fly. It’s not like the hollow out-of-body experience you get when you’re being tortured. You don’t know what it’s like. Like the weight of your body is gone.

Angela’s lab glows red with emergency lighting. She’s silhouetted by it. You snort. Typical of her, to keep working during a terrorist attack. You raise your arm to raise yourself up, but all you see is a swarm of black dust, like bugs in mating season.

You raise your other hand. More dust. You look to the side. Stumps where your arms should be, and dust, dust, dust –

Screams tear out of your broken mouth.

Your body becomes dust and your eyes are a thousand places, a million, and you scream with the throat you don’t have as you make for the door. What has she done to you?!

She throws a hand out. Her palm is shredded in seconds. You curl away from her and run. _Fly_.

You run and you run and you run in the air, away, away away away away away –

You see Amelie through a window, sniper rifle on her shoulder, and you gasp in relief and shove your way through the crack in the window. She spins, knife out, as you reform on the floor in pieces. Part of you spins as smoke while others try to grow fingers, skull, throat.

“Amelie,” you rasp.

“Reyes,” she says, and what she says next is drowned out by the handlers swearing, demanding to know what just happened.

You black out again in response.

* * *

 

The debriefing takes a week. Probably. You keep on turning into ash when you sleep, which makes it difficult to keep track of time.

Angela did something to you to make you like this. Your body feels like it’s asleep all the time, all over, pins and needles, nails in your joints. Your bones have knit back together in days instead of months but it feels like broken porcelain inside.

“Your code name is Reaper now,” your handler says. “You’re going to make us all very proud.”

You should feel proud. Jack is dead, his body missing in the rubble. Overwatch is in pieces. You are not dead yet, though you should be.

You’re a dead man twice over now. The cicada in a suit made from his own dead skin. When they let you choose your uniform, you go to the skull mask.

The dead should look dead, you think, and you feel something like a chuckle leave your throat. The mask fits like a glove. It feels right, to wear your own death, to advertise that Gabriel Reyes has died alongside Jack Morrison.

“Back in black,” you rumble, and it makes Amelie smile. It’s enough for you.

The dead can’t be picky, after all.


End file.
